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Twitter Shutdown Of Vine Being Called A ‘Hate Crime’ Against Blacks
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Within minutes of Twitter announcing the end of Vine, its short video platform, critics raced to declare the move racist and an attack on non-white Internet users.
Vine, launched in 2013, never became quite as popular as Twitter hoped. So, as part of a broader restructuring that is eliminating 9 percent of the company’s workforce, Twitter announced Thursday that the platform will shut down within a few months; video content is presumably expected to migrate to Twitter.
That’s of course bad news for Vine’s dedicated fans.
Some people went even further and accused Twitter of cavalierly destroying a service of immense value to blacks and other non-white people.
Tracy Clayton of Buzzfeed was particularly incensed, claiming the shutdown was an attack on “creatives of color.”
this is a blow for creatives of color. im really, really hurt and upset.
— TrickorTracy Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) October 27, 2016
we really can't have nothing. we can't have a single damn thing.
— TrickorTracy Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) October 27, 2016
THE MAN: The blacks. They're too happy lately. What do we do about this?
THE GUBMENT: Vine is a source of their joy.
THE MAN: kill it.
— TrickorTracy Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) October 27, 2016
User Alexandra Erin went a step further, saying that Twitter’s decision to cut Vine was an explicit choice to choose racists and “rapists” over non-whites.
That is, Twitter would rather play host to a cesspool of racists, rapists, and terrorists than to a vibrant community of artists of color.
— Alexandra Erin (@alexandraerin) October 27, 2016
Rembert Brown of New York Magazine even called the shutdown a “hate crime.”
ending vine is a hate crime against black teens from atlanta
— Rembert Browne (@rembert) October 27, 2016
Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post argued that Vine was a critical tool for reporting on-the-ground events in Ferguson, Mo., after the shooting death of Michael Brown.
easy to forget, but Vine was really, really big during Ferguson – which happened before periscope/Snapchat were things
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) October 27, 2016
Jason Scott, founder of the Internet archive site Textfiles.com, said that the masses should fight against the loss of Vine’s “unfiltered” community.
Also, and this is serious – Vine was a major unfiltered media outpoint for people of color and forgotten folks. They should fight this.
— Jason Scott (@textfiles) October 27, 2016
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